HARTFORD — Citing Election Day problems, city council members said Tuesday that they will seek to remove the city's three registrars of voters.

Council members said they will file a resolution Wednesday that, if approved, would begin the removal process for the registrars — Democrat Olga Vazquez; Urania Petit, a Working Families Party member; and Republican Sheila Hall. Council President Shawn Wooden said a vote on the plan is expected Monday.

The council can remove elected officials with a supermajority vote, meaning that seven of the nine members would have to vote in favor of the proposal.

The registrars' office could face additional reforms as well; the council's operations, management, budget and legislative affairs committee is developing a set of recommendations for change.

"The council believes that the conduct reported by the committee may constitute 'dereliction of official duty, or incompetence' by the Hartford Registrars of Voters," the resolution, sponsored by Wooden and four other council members, says.

A committee formed to investigate Election Day mishaps released a report Friday highlighting numerous errors on the part of the registrars' office that caused polls to open late on Nov. 4. They included: a failure of elections officials to provide the secretary of the state with information about polling place moderators; a failure to file final registry books with the town and city clerk by Oct. 29; a failure to prepare and deliver final registry books to moderators by 8 p.m. the night before the election, as required by state law; and a failure to correct discrepancies in the vote tallies reported by the head moderator.

The resolution calls for hiring attorney Ross Garber, who did volunteer work for the committee investigating Election Day issues, to "draft charges warranted by the information gathered by the committee … against each registrar of voters for consideration by the council."

Garber would present a statement of charges to the council by Jan. 30. If the council decides to continue with the removal process, the resolution states, Garber would act as prosecuting counsel.

"It is incumbent on the council to act," Wooden said Tuesday, "and if we don't act, shame on us.

"We've all had a lot of time to think about what happened on Nov. 4. … It's quite clear that our registrars have not met the standards required of our registrars. I think that very serious violations have occurred."

Wooden said the registrars would have the opportunity to attend hearings, present evidence and call witnesses in their defense if the council moves ahead with the plan.

Council member Joel Cruz, a co-chairman of the investigating committee, said Tuesday that the registrars would be given a fair process.

"Based on the findings and facts in [the committee's] report, it would be horrible — atrocious — for us to not take action on what we found," he said.

Cruz said the removal process is only one piece of the reforms that must take place.

"The report was step one," he said. "This [resolution] is probably step 2 of many steps that need to be taken to reshape the office to make it more voter-friendly."

Additional changes could include proposed state legislation that would allow the office to operate with a single, nonpartisan registrar at the helm. Wooden said it was unclear at this point what would happen if all three registrars were removed.

The registrars could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

People were unable to vote at as many as 10 polling locations when they opened at 6 a.m. on Election Day because the voter lists were not delivered on time. Voters had to wait more than an hour at certain places, and some left without voting, prompting the Democratic Party to seek extended hours.

A Superior Court judge eventually ordered that two polling places remain open for an extra half-hour.

Election workers told The Courant in November that they didn't begin checking off absentee voters from registration lists until the day before the election — a job that typically is finished days earlier.

The employees said they didn't complete that task until less than an hour before polls were to open, causing voter lists to arrive late. Absentee voters are crossed off the lists to prevent people from voting again at the polls.

The committee investigating Election Day problems reviewed thousands of documents and heard testimony from 11 witnesses over the course of two days in December. It also conducted informal interviews with people involved.

The panel confirmed reports that the delay in checking off absentee voters resulted in certain polling places opening late. It also pointed out issues that occurred after the election — including that the final vote tally remains unclear, and that "no Hartford election official can explain what happened to approximately 70 absentee ballots reported as having been received."

There is still no agreement among the registrars, head moderator and city clerk as to which election results were accurate, the committee's report says. Different numbers were reported by different election officials.

The committee attributed the errors to "omissions by certain Hartford elected officials; a lack of leadership and accountability; and the absence of a clear, legally prescribed chain of command."

The State Elections Enforcement Commission has begun a separate investigation into the Election Day problems.